New Blood

Chapter Four.

It was that night that I'd met the first Were in Oregon. I'd taken a walk away from the appartment, to where the road thinned and the houses were foreclosed and quiet.

These lands were different, fallen pine needles poking away at my nose as I dodged through the woods. One scent in particular caught my interest, and despite myself, I threw myself atop it, a mess of flopping and flying legs as I rubbed the scent into my pelt. To this day I do not know why I do that in irregular scents, but it feels right.

If I hadn't let down my guard to enjoy a moment of bliss, then I would have caught the scent of another lupine in my zone before I was pinned beneath the foreign wolf.

Yellowed teeth snapped in my face, my eyes blurring as I tried to focus on the face of the wolf that tackled me, crashing my paws into its stomach. By the build, it was an adulted male, maybe the barest hint smaller than I in this form.

The wolf yelped and stumbled away from me after my paws made impact with his soft underbelly, but I'd only made it onto my side when the wolf pinned me again, large paws crashing onto my shoulders and slamming me back onto the ground. But the weight lifted slightly as another growl-bark came from the darkness.

I attempted to turn my head to see the other wolf, but it was a lost cause. Once the Were was off of me, I shot to my paws and took off through the trees again, hurtling through a francesca night and back towards the direction I'd left my things. My heart raced as I swapped forms quickly.

Trying to speed up the change is a bad thing, especially if others are in pursuit and you become totally vulnerable to anything that happens. So, with my luck, the wolves had followed my scent to my convulsing body. Pain shot through my form as my body tried to follow my fast request of changing, even if I attempted to slow it; my first request dominated the other one.

My eyes rolled up in their sockets to the two wolves, the one that had tackled me the first time glancing over his shoulder at a smaller russet, before the male escaped from us and changed forms himself. He soon slipped from the darkness; clothed, to my suprise, though I didn't pay much mind to it and worked on playing fact to slowing my thundering heartrate as I finally reached human form, flopping onto my hands and knees and heaving right there in the undergrowth.

Apparently, the man had found where I'd stashed my clothing and lifted the bundle, shoving it into my hands in a hurried motion. The other, now formed as a woman, crouched down in front of me and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I though it had been all genuine until she slipped her fingers to her nose, then looked at the male.

"He's foreign."

Ceasing my shivers, I shifted to the clothing that had been handed to me, slowly slipping into them. Nausea still rolled my stomach, perspiration wetting my forehead and hair.

The male was about three inches shorter than me if I was standing, but well-built with defined muscles and pale blonde hair. The female was short and slender, a sundress hugging at her curves and wispy ginger hair falling over her shoulder.

"He's an idiot, that's what," the male said, shooting me a look as I turned to a tree again and emptied my stomach of everything beside the tree I'd crashed beneath. Little did they know I was paying attention to their conversation and... Puking. "If you force the change too fast, you end up really sick or stuck between."

"Well, Jackson, fear made him do it," the girl hissed, then there was the slight sound of her moving, before I felt a fragile hand place on my spine and cool fingers brush the sweaty hair from my forehead. "Poor baby."

"My fault? You're the one who spazzed because someone was in Pack territory, Isa." Jackson growled, and my stomach decided there was nothing left in it to heave. I straightened, rubbing my mouth off on the bottom of my shirt and touching the back of my neck.

Isa stepped away, then quirked a girlish smile. "I'd take him to Alpha but he might puke on the carpet," she said, eying me from head to toe with brilliant green eyes.

"Then why don't we let him go and report?" Jackson questioned, looking at me levelly.

"And get yelled at?" Isa thought for a moment, before reaching up to catch my chin between her thumb and forefinger, jerking my head side to side, up and down and inspecting my face and neck. "To Hell; why not?"

"Fine," Jackson said. "What's your name, stranger?"

I realized he was actually talking to me. Not at me, to me. "Nathan. I'm new to Oregon."

Isa smirked, letting go of my chin to punch Jackson in the chest. "Called it!"

"Well, Nathan, I'm Jackson and this is Isabelle," he said, waving his hand to the girl. "And you see this land, well, it's our Pack land. Pack land's don't like strangers. You're lucky we don't take you to the Alpha."

"I understand," I said with a bob of my head, and he snorted. I turned my gaze to his amber one, meeting it coldly. If he was dominant or not, I didn't care; nobody treated me like a moron. Tension built between us, until Isabelle stepped to his side and gave his arm a light tug.

"Just let him go, Jackson. He didn't know," she whined, and he looked away. And then sent me a curt nod, and both escaped into the darkness, leaving me alone to the wilderness and my thoughts. That and, the trekk back to my new appartment.